Takeaway
- Regular glucosamine use was inversely associated with the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
- This inverse association was modified by smoking pack-years.
Why this matters
- Findings indicate that regular glucosamine use combined with smoking cessation may reduce the risk of COPD.
Study details
- A prospective study assessed the association between regular glucosamine use and incident COPD risk in UK Biobank 483,703 participants (mean age, 56.5 years; males, 54.6%).
- Funding: National Natural Science Foundation of China and others.
Key results
- Overall, 19.1% of participants self-reported habitual glucosamine use at baseline.
- During a median follow-up of 8.96 years, 9016 participants developed incident COPD.
- Regular glucosamine use was significantly associated with a reduced risk of incident COPD (adjusted HR [aHR], 0.80; 95% CI, 0.75-0.85; P<.001).
- A significant interaction was observed between glucosamine use and smoking pack-years (P=.019) on the risk of incident COPD:
- never smokers: aHR, 0.82; P=.003;
- hardly ever smokers: aHR, 0.78; P=.065;
- light smokers: aHR, 0.70; P<.001;
- moderate smokers: aHR, 0.66; P<.001; and
- heavy smokers: aHR, 0.85; P=.002.
- Regular glucosamine use could reduce incident COPD events by 83.72% (95% CI, 82.79-84.52%) in never smokers and 25.53% (95% CI, 17.49-32.70%) in current smokers.
- Regular glucosamine use combined with smoking cessation could reduce incident COPD by 61.74% (95% CI, 59.98-63.30%).
Limitations
- Residual confounding bias.
- Dietary supplement intake was self-reported without detailed information on formulations, dosage, duration and frequency of glucosamine use.
This clinical summary originally appeared on Univadis, part of the Medscape Professional Network.
